


carried away

by Engineer104



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: It starts as simple assistance. Annette can't walk? Felix must carry her. She's not heavy, and he's not as much of a villain as she insists.Until it repeats and he carries her again, and it stops being so simple.Or: Seven reasons Felix picks up and carries Annette from the silly and serious and to the sweet and sexy.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 24
Kudos: 86





	carried away

**Author's Note:**

> Me, as a joke: *lists a bunch of reasons that Felix would carry Annette*  
> Me, as a joke: Hey what if i wrote some into a fic  
> Me, 10k words later: This is no longer a joke
> 
> ANYWAY some quick warnings: the fourth vignette is a battle scene and has violence and a blink-and-you'll-miss it reference to animal death if that bothers anyone. And the last vignette gets a tiny bit suggestive. That said, this is overwhelmingly fluff (and very corny)
> 
> In any case, please enjoy!

Felix failed to understand the point of this exercise. He knew how to navigate the wilderness and retrace his steps, and alone at that, so he didn’t know why he needed to endure this assignment.

Unless that was why the professor had paired him with Annette, who made so much noise crashing through the underbrush and crunching on dead leaves (that he was sure she did on purpose) that he would never dare take her along for a hunt. It was almost deafening, drowning out the chirrup of birdsong and the burbling of a nearby creek, and altogether offensive compare to her voice when she—

Well, it was oddly tempting to ask about those songs she’d mentioned in the greenhouse, so he said, “At least with all the noise you’re making, every bear in the Sealed Forest will avoid us, but who’s to say what the swamp beasties will do?”

The heat of Annette’s glare burned into his back. “How dare you mention that!” she hissed.

“No one’s around to hear,” Felix reminded her with a broad gesture around. “You scared everything off, unless you think the trees have ears.”

“ _You’re_ here,” she grumbled, “and you’re one person too—ah!” Leaves crunched and crushed behind him, and when Felix spun around it was to find Annette stumbling, unbalanced and falling.

He lunged for her without thinking, but he’d drawn too far ahead of her. She landed on her hands and knees with a gasp, her eyes wide with shock.

“Ow…” she mumbled.

Felix offered her a hand, but she ignored it in favor of pushing herself to her feet...until her legs gave way and she fell against a nearby tree.

Annette slid down to lean against it and clutch at her foot. “Oh no.”

He approached her warily, concerned this was some kind of trap or revenge for his...well, he wouldn’t call it _teasing_ so much as _reluctant interest_. “What happened?” he asked.

“I think—nothing!” Her arms flung out and she braced herself against the tree trunk as she stood again. “Yes, this is fine, I’m fine!” She straightened, took a step, and fell again.

This time Felix caught her, one hand grasping her arm and the other around her waist. She tried to pull away from him for all of a second before she gave up and said, “Sorry.”

“What happened?” he tried again. (He devoutly refused to think of how slim her waist was and how warm she felt.)

“I think my foot got caught by a tree root or rabbit hole or something,” Annette confessed in a low voice. Her face angled away from him, so he couldn’t see her expression.

“And…?”

“I might have...twisted my ankle,” she said. Her shoulders twitched with a sigh. “Did you bring any vulnerary?”

“No,” he said.

“Me neither,” she said, sagging. “Great…”

“A vulnerary isn’t strong enough to heal anything broken or sprained anyway,” Felix reminded her. He helped her lean back against the tree before crouching at her feet.

His field medicine was decidedly lacking - he tended to disregard his father’s _advice_ that he at least learn a basic Heal spell - but he’d picked up enough from having childhood training injuries tended to that it would be simple to gauge what was wrong with Annette’s ankle.

To his surprise (and relief), she didn’t resist when he carefully tugged off her boot and touched her ankle. He froze when a hiss escaped her, but it only took a few eerily silent moments for him to realize, “It’s probably a sprain. You shouldn’t walk on it until someone can heal it.”

“Oh, good,” Annette said, “because I can _fly_ back to the monastery just fine.”

“I’ll carry you.”

The words slipped from his lips before he really thought them through, and he pretended they hadn’t slipped out at all by standing and offering Annette her boot.

She took it without comment, except to say, “No.”

“If you can’t walk—”

“I’d rather learn to fly without a Pegasus or wyvern than let anyone see you carrying me,” Annette cut him off.

Felix’s jaw flapped uselessly, stunned by such a vehement refusal...and that was all. Her words didn’t sting, and it wasn’t his problem. She could return to the monastery without his help and see how it served her, and he opened his mouth to tell her so.

Instead he said, “That’s stupid.”

She crossed her arms, her boot dangling from one hand, and glared at his feet. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “It’s not that far back to the monastery anyway, and I can handle a little pain.”

“We’ll move faster if I carry you,” Felix pointed out in what he hoped was a reasonable enough tone. “Here.” He turned his back to her and crouched on his knees. “On my back.”

His heart beat in his ears while he waited for Annette to make up her mind. The tips of his ears warmed, and he was growing more and more convinced that they would light his hair on fire with every heartbeat that she was silent.

Then she sighed, and her hand rested on his shoulder. “Fine,” she said. “It’s...nice of you to offer anyway.” She pressed against him, and he hooked his arms under her legs while she wrapped hers around his shoulders.

Felix stood with remarkable ease - she didn’t weigh much at all, a greatsword was probably heavier than her - and said, “Was that so hard?”

Her forehead rested against the back of his head, and her warm breath whispered over his neck as she huffed, “Let’s just get back to the monastery. And don’t you dare tell anyone about this!”

He rolled his eyes - who did he have to tell anyway? Sylvain would never let something like this go, and Ingrid would die of shock - but promised, “Fine. Not even a word to my favorite straw training dummy.”

* * *

Felix didn’t know why he was here, in the library, with disaster looming, with the herald of another disaster running around the monastery unchecked. He should be on the training grounds swinging a blade, gaining whatever edge he could over new and old enemies, but instead of a sword in his hand he carried a book.

He suspected he’d find Annette here, especially after curfew. Since Tomas’...betrayal (or transformation?) Seteth had installed an elderly monk as librarian, but his memory must’ve dulled with age for he often forgot to lock the doors before leaving in the evenings.

Felix bit back a sigh as he approached her form, slumped over a table strewn with open books and notes. Her lantern flickered, throwing shadows around, and his own stretched long alongside him and across neighboring bookshelves. Anyone - another interloper like Solon or Kronya or an Empire spy - could be lurking between them, sheltering in the dark, so he rested his free hand on the hilt of his sword and narrowed his eyes at each aisle.

“Annette?” he said in a low voice. When he drew abreast of her seat, he set the book on the table. “You left this in—” He cut himself off with a frown when a slight rustling caught his ear.

Annette...was snoring, if softly.

His mouth fell open in shock before he scrubbed a hand over his face and muttered, “Of course.”

When her breath hitched he stiffened, fearing he’d woken her and that the first thing she’d do would be to harangue him. But her breathing steadied again, and Felix exhaled in relief.

Only to realize that he shouldn’t just...leave her here, where any true villain could find her.

Perhaps he should wake her. Once she woke, she could return to her room and sleep there like a normal student in need of rest, but she would likely as not bite his head off, if she didn’t outright refuse just so she could study for a little longer.

The obvious solution crept over him, and the only reason he gave it more than a second’s consideration was because he doubted Annette could hate him more than she already did. And with his luck she would wake anyway and accuse him of something more...unsavory.

He left her books and notebooks untouched, only capped her inkwell so nothing would knock it over. An image on one of the open pages that didn’t look anything like a rune or spell sigil caught his eye, and he squinted at it trying to decipher the messy sketch before recognizing a crude drawing of him.

At least he thought it was. The stick figure held a sword in one hand and had a squiggle that might be a ponytail, and its face wore a scowl and arched eyebrows.

Felix frowned. Was he really always so angry she would make him into a caricature?

Well, he wasn’t angry now so much as...frustrated and irritated that she would be so careless to fall asleep in such a public place with the Empire’s attack imminent.

He gingerly rested his hand on her back, and when that light touch didn’t wake her he slid his other arm under her thighs and lifted her, nudging her chair out of the way with his foot. He stepped back, his heart beating against his ribs as he stared down at her face, half-expecting the motion managed what nothing else he’d done so far had.

Annette’s head lolled back, lips parted as she breathed. A familiar warmth filled his chest, but he shook his head and said, “If you wake up and call me names for this…”

She practically _snuffled_ in her sleep like a human-sized rabbit, indecipherable murmurs falling from her lips as one of her hands clutched at his vest. He stiffened and tore his eyes away from her face.

“Let’s get this over with,” he mumbled as he turned and headed out of the library.

Almost an hour after curfew didn’t leave the building deserted. As he walked towards the stairs with his deceptively light burden, light streamed from underneath a few doorways into the deserted corridor. He slowed as he approached Seteth’s door, keeping his step light as he crossed.

He’d barely reached the top of the stairwell when the burden in his arms shifted and...hummed.

“...am I?”

Felix looked down to find Annette blinking sleepily up at him before her eyes widened and she started wiggling like a finicky cat.

“Let me go, you villain!” she practically shrieked, arms thrashing and her fist nearly colliding with his chin.

He set her on her feet, and as she opened her mouth to snap at him (he guessed) he slapped his palm over it. “Shh,” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder. “Do you want Seteth to catch you out after curfew?”

Her brow scrunched in a glare, but the tension eased from her body. When she jerked her face away from his hand, he lowered it to his side. “Oh, is that why you were trying to kidnap me?” Annette wondered.

He scrubbed a hand over his face as his worst nightmare was realized. “I wasn’t trying to kidnap you,” Felix said. “I was trying to return a book to you.”

“Oh, really?” She crossed her arms and made a very good show of looking around. “Did you swallow the book? Or are you hiding it somewhere in your ridiculously tight trousers?”

He exhaled and begged the goddess or any deity that might be listening for patience. “I left it in the library, where I found you asleep.”

“So you decided to wake me up?”

“I wasn’t trying to wake you up,” he retorted. “In case you haven’t noticed, being out alone after dark isn’t the safest prospect at the moment.”

Annette raised a hand and opened her mouth only to falter. But her ferocity wasn’t spent. “So you were going to carry me to my room?” she asked. When he nodded, she continued, “What was the plan when you got there then? You’d need my key to open it, which was in my bag, which, unless I’m mistaken, is still in the library.”

Felix stared at her, searching her face for any sign of a jest, until his ears burned and he couldn’t bear to look at her and feel like a fool any longer. “I, um, maybe I...acted too quickly,” he mumbled.

“Not that unusual for you.” To his surprise, no accusation filtered through her words, and when he dared a glance at her face the slightest hint of a smile quirked her lips. “I guess I accused you too quickly too.”

“Not so unusual for you either,” he noted.

Annette flushed, then her eyes drifted past him. “Now I have to return to the library anyway,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” Felix said.

Her eyes nearly bugged as she stared at him. “Weren’t you just complaining about being out after curfew?”

“I don’t care about getting into trouble,” he admitted. He rested a hand on the hilt of his sword and added, “And it would be better not to cross monastery grounds alone once you’re outside.”

Her jaw flapped for all of a long, tense heartbeat before she rolled her eyes. “All right, if you insist,” she said. 

“I think someone should also make sure you don’t return to studying,” Felix added.

The glare Annette leveled at him should’ve melted him on the spot, but the massive yawn splitting her jaws ruined the effect.

* * *

Some things even five long years of war couldn’t change, and in this moment Felix thought of a few in particular:

That something about Annette invariably lifted his mood, and that she could talk...a lot.

And that just her voice alone still affected him, warmed him better than a hot drink on a cold evening, better than strong spirits, better than a lit hearth.

He avoided just that now, preferring to lurk outside in the cold on the edge of the warm glow emanating from within the dining hall rather than engage in the unearned revelry that his old man’s reinforcements brought with them. And that was when Annette found him and practically shoved a ceramic mug of steaming tea into his hands before tugging him to his feet and saying, “Let’s go on a walk!”

He frowned and glanced over his shoulder towards the dining hall. “Don’t you want to stay?” he asked. He’d glimpsed her earlier in the evening too, laughing with Mercedes and Ashe, perhaps too loudly, perhaps too falsely, perhaps—

Oh, and all at once he realized she left to avoid something - or someone - too.

The fact that she found Felix anyway pleased him more than he could say, more than he thought he would want to.

“No,” Annette answered with a shake of her head. “I’d rather...it’s a nice night, don’t you think, Felix?” Her breath misted out as she spoke, little white clouds like puffs of smoke.

He shrugged and stuffed his free hand into a pocket. He stared into the mug she’d brought him - tea with his favorite four-spice blend judging from the scent of cinnamon and cloves; strange, he’d thought this a luxury not easily found in wartime - and said, “It’s not terrible. No clouds, new moon…” Perfect conditions for an aurora to unfurl across the sky in Gautier, for someone who appreciated such things.

Or for creeping through trees to scout an enemy army’s encampment under cover of darkness.

“Yes,” Annette said, clasping her gloved hands together. “The weather is...very nice. The stars are also very nice.” Her gaze flicked to his face before slipping away again.

Felix waited for her to say something else, or maybe to explain more about why she wanted to go on a walk, only for her to tuck her arm through his and pull him along towards the stairs that led down to the fishing pond.

And he went without struggling, too shocked - and way too pleased; what was wrong with him? - to resist.

They walked in silence at first. Felix sipped from his mug and wondered why Annette hadn’t brought her own, and he tried not to dwell too much on how her warmth pressed against his side warded from the chilly night air.

“You know what tonight reminds me of?” she finally said.

“What?” he said as they drifted towards the greenhouse.

“There wasn’t any dancing - at least not yet - when I left,” Annette explained, “but it reminded me a little of the ball. Remember the ball?”

Of all mandatory activities, the ball was the one Felix wanted to remember the least, yet remember that evening he did. He wouldn’t be able to tell her what songs the ensemble played, or what food was served, or which girls Sylvain bragged about dancing with.

But he did remember Annette dancing with boys whose names he couldn’t recall, smiling and laughing as they spun her around (or she spun them) much like she was in the dining hall before he left.

He left then too, partly because it was all a waste of time with strange enemies all but breathing down their necks and partly because watching her smile for someone else made his chest tighten for a reason he hadn’t been able to name.

In the end, he said, “Of course I remember the ball, and I suppose it was even more of a waste of time, energy, and resources as that little party the professor insisted on having tonight.”

“Well...sure,” Annette conceded. “It is a little strange, isn’t it? Having a party, even a small one, during the middle of a war was strange, but I think it’s nice to get our mind off things, you know?”

A party in his father’s honor was hardly Felix’s idea of a good time. “Perhaps,” he said. “I understand some might consider it useful to boost morale, but I have other ways I’d rather distract myself.”

“Oh?” Her voice dripped curiosity, and when he glanced sideways at her she blinked at him. “Like what?”

His mouth dried, and he tore his gaze away. “Like—”

“If you say _training_ ,” Annette interrupted, “I swear to the goddess I’m locking you in the greenhouse next time it’s your turn to water the plants.”

He frowned at the path ahead and even spared a look for the greenhouse already behind them. “I was not actually,” he said. “Training is one though”—he almost smiled when Annette dug her elbow into his side—“but it wasn’t the one I was thinking of.”

“Then what was?” she pressed.

Felix’s face warmed, yet somehow he managed to eke out, “Talking to you.”

She took so long to respond that he wished he could take the words back. He scared her off somehow, at any moment she would wrench her arm away from him and bolt back to the dining hall, to laugh with her other friends rather than endure his company any longer.

Instead he practically felt her body shifting as she exhaled and murmured, “Oh.”

Silence reigned again, but this time Felix couldn’t bear it. “Do you study to distract yourself?”

Annette sighed. “Studying is hardly a _distraction_ ,” she said. “It’s a _solution_. If I study, I can improve myself, and it’s something I’m good at!”

Felix hummed, thoughtful. “I forgot that only sleep can distract you from something like studying.”

She groaned but said, “I do not know what you’re talking about.”

“Surely you do,” he said, nudging her side. A smile prodded at his lips, and he didn’t bother fighting it. “Even the mysteries of Reason can’t keep the needs of your body at bay.”

“Says the swordsman with calluses thicker than his actual fingers,” Annette grumbled.

He raised his hand and frowned, although he couldn’t see his fingers through his glove. “I don’t—”

She laughed, bright and bold and true. “It’s a joke, Felix,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I still think you have nice—I mean”—she cleared her throat and glanced away from him—“just as long as you don’t tell anyone about the time you actually carried me out of the library…”

“Why would I tell anyone about that?” he wondered.

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed with a shrug. “You can be a villain sometimes, though I guess I’ve known you long enough to know that you’re not a gossip.”

“It took you almost six years to learn that?” Felix said.

“Yes, well…” He wasn’t sure for only the stars and a few lampposts illuminated their surroundings, but he thought she blushed. “I may be good at studying, but that doesn’t always translate to being good at...learning.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Learning me?” Learning...implied study, and the thought of Annette studying _him_ made heat crawl up the back of his neck.

“Among other things!” she insisted. “To be fair, regarding _you_ , I had to take a sabbatical for five of those six years.” She turned her face just to afford him a view of her scowl, as if he was to blame for that separation rather than the war.

Though he couldn’t say if he would’ve kept in contact if war never broke out. He never liked dwelling on hypotheticals; they hurt more than they helped.

Still, just as when they were students, the idea of inciting Annette’s ire...discomfited him, and maybe that was why he said, “You told me tonight reminded you of the ball.”

“Yes?”

“What does this remind you of?” And then he tugged his arm from her grip before slipping both around her and scooping her up.

In the two quick heartbeats it took for his mind to catch up with this stupidest of impulses, Felix recognized a few important things:

That Annette felt even warmer in his arms than she did walking alongside him and that his skin burned under his coat; that he could still carry her with remarkable ease, perhaps even more easily than he did as a student; that her startled gasp delighted him in a way that her singing didn’t; and that he was right, and from this close he could see the flush painting her cheeks pink.

Also that he’d spilled the remnants of his tea onto his boots, but that was the least of his concerns with Annette staring up at him with wide eyes.

“Felix?” she all but whispered. One of her arms hovered over his back, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with it. “What was—what was that for?”

At least she wasn’t shrieking or calling him names or making demands. At least.

His heart raced, so fast and loud that he was sure she must hear or even _feel_ it, and he somehow managed to suck air into his lungs and swallow through a dry throat before his limbs thawed and he set her down.

Felix stepped away from her, further than arm’s reach, and raised his mug to his lips only to find it empty and utterly useless at relieving the dryness in his throat. “I just, um, just got carried away,” he said, wincing at a crack in his voice. “Worried you’d trip and twist your ankle again.”

He would not complain if the ground opened and consumed him and spat him out in Sreng.

“Th-thank you for worrying!” Annette said, her voice pitching higher than usual. “I, um, I think I was the one who got carried away…”

“I’m returning to the dining hall,” Felix said, the better to end this torture now. He could endure his comrades toasting his father or even the boar’s oppressive presence better than the embarrassment writhing in his abdomen.

“Yes, let’s go!” she said. “We should...maybe now isn’t the time to—I...” She trailed off as he picked up his pace, the better to avoid looking at her, though he couldn’t so easily banish the sensation of her warm weight in his arms from his mind.

* * *

Not even all the training in the world could prepare someone for the chaos of battle, for the ebb and flow of soldiers and the cacophony of clashing weapons and the shouts of angry fighters and the cries of wounded and dying men and women. Only experience earned Felix the instincts that kept him alive in the mire, kept his mind sharp and focused in the surging tide of bodies.

He weathered a horse’s kick with barely a grunt despite the sharp sting of a cracked rib. His shield caught an enemy mage’s Thoron with enough power it forced him backwards a few steps. His sword dripped with blood, and the air stank of lightning and smoke and the odors of hundreds of bodies.

_“Oh, how I just love to clean. Clean the library room! Just takes a flash of light and then it all goes boom!”_

Another voice in his head drowned out the clamor of the battle. Somehow Annette’s songs still followed him into the thick of it despite her being ordered at the backlines with the rest of their mages. It was something he found a selfish comfort in, though he knew that no part of a teeming battlefield was ever safe.

Especially not when their frontline broke and gave way to a flood of enemies.

They overwhelmed them, and drowned them, and Felix went from cutting down foe after foe with an almost pathetic sort of ease to fighting for his life. He pivoted to avoid a lance in the shoulder, jerked up his arm to catch with his shield the head of an axe intent on taking his head, and felt the ground beneath his feet burn hot with Bolganone before he jumped away.

“Fall back!” Dimitri - a more sensible commander than the boar - shouted over the roar, and soon his command echoed through their ranks.

Felix gritted his teeth, frustration burning hot through his chest, but despite his own reticence he knew a lost battle when he experienced one. His lungs heaved with effort as he retreated towards the backline, and he wiped sweat from his face.

His glove came away wet with blood, but he was sure it wasn’t his.

He passed soldiers holding their injured comrades upright, a cavalier sobbing as she put her fallen horse out of its misery, a Pegasus knight touching down to offer her mount to someone too wounded to walk…

All the while the enemy pushed their advantage, their cavalry moving to flank them and cut off their retreat and turn a lost battle into a rout.

And cutting off the song in Felix’s head when he realized they sliced through the backline.

A fresh wave of energy surged through his body as he ran, heedless of the exhaustion creeping over him. Faster, he needed to be _faster_ , the better to combat this flow of the tide.

How unprepared they’d been. How easily they’d let themselves be surrounded, allowing their more vulnerable archers and mages to fall.

If he survived - when he survived - he would have words with the professor about her so-called tactics.

“—get up! You have to _get up_!”

Annette’s voice drew him easily, the lone thing that stood against the current. He changed direction and ran to her, his heart beating, bruisingly against his cracked rib, before he found her crouched beside another crumpled mage.

“Miriel, you _have_ to get up!” she cried.

An Empire paladin galloped towards her, sword slicing through the air, and Felix opened his mouth to shout a warning.

Annette spun around first, tangled hair whipping around her face and a tempest stirring up dust. Her skin all but glowed in the light of her glyphs, and the wind obeyed her wordless command and shoved the paladin from his horse and to the ground with a wail.

If not for his own momentum - if not for his own desperation and instincts - Felix might’ve been awed.

She returned her attention to her fallen ally as he approached her. “Miriel, _please_ ,” Annette begged, shaking the woman.

But the other mage lay limp, the ground beneath her damp with her blood, glassy, unseeing eyes set in a pale face.

“Annette,” Felix said as he halted before her. His gaze snapped around, sword raised to fend off other opportunistic enemies. “We have to go. We were ordered to fall back.”

She stared up at him, eyes red. His breath caught, and he - perhaps naively - thought it horrifyingly unfair that she ever had to suffer battle. “But—”

“You can’t help her,” he told her.

Her jaw set with a familiar stubbornness, one he couldn’t help admiring in other circumstances. “I can’t just leave her, Felix.”

And then Felix understood that he had no choice.

He sheathed his blade and grabbed her.

Annette did not come quietly. A shriek tore from her throat as he picked her up almost as easily as he did a sword, but unlike a sword she resisted.

He threw her over his shoulder and endured her yells, endured her calling him a villain and worse, endured her knee brushing his injured rib and sending a spike of pain through his chest. All he cared about was making sure she escaped the battlefield alive.

And then she settled and quieted but for trembling and sniffles, and that Felix almost couldn’t endure.

Eventually the tide of battle turned and receded. Their army rebuffed the enemy’s attempted flanking and retreated to the other side of the river at their backs. They picked up the pieces and licked their wounds. The dead were accounted for, gathered for burial, and “honored”.

The survivors endured, as they always did.

Soon enough Felix would stalk through their ranks and find those whose fate most...concerned him, but for now he set Annette down on her feet as soon as he identified far more allies than foes. 

The less weary ones shot them curious or judgmental glances and self-consciousness suffused his battle fatigue, but his chest twisted with worry as she avoided his gaze, her expression sullen.

He cupped her cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said. When she didn’t reply, he asked, “Are you hurt?”

Annette shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said. Her eyes flicked up to his face, then her brow furrowed. “Are you?”

Felix’s hand lifted automatically to his chest, and he failed to lower it before she noticed from how her gaze tracked the motion. “Fine enough,” he said.

Her hands found his. “What did you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

“I...you didn’t…” She tore her eyes away again, and he hated to see her so miserable. “That wasn’t from when you took me and ran, was it?”

“It was from before,” he admitted.

“I...goddess,” Annette sighed. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. “I was so stupid—I could’ve endangered you too, I don’t—”

“Annette,” Felix cut her off, because watching her berate herself squeezed something in him, “I…” But then he trailed off, unsure what to say or how to reassure her.

She lifted her face, and her eyes shone with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. She wrapped her arms around herself. “I should’ve known Miriel was d-dead, I wasn’t thinking, and I-I—”

“You were in shock,” Felix said. He rested a hand on her shoulder, and she glanced up to meet his gaze. He resisted the urge to look away before continuing, “And you’re fine.”

“I was her commander,” Annette said. Her eyes slid shut, but a tear slipped past her eyelids. “I-it was my fault, I should’ve called our retreat sooner, and I’ll have to write to her parents and tell her f-fiance and—” She cut herself off with a sob.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, unsure what else he could do, if there was anything else he should. His chest felt taut as a coiled spring, and his whole body was littered with scrapes and bruises beginning to make themselves known, but he tucked her into his arms anyway.

He didn’t tell her that he understood, that it was exactly why he refused the professor’s and the boar’s every insistence he lead a battalion, why he distanced himself from soldiers that once looked up to his father as their commander and now looked upon him with both hope and wariness.

Instead he held her close while she pressed her face into his shoulder and her tears stained his filthy coat and her fingernails dug into his arms and his heart beat steadily against his cracked rib.

And, selfishly, he couldn’t help but be glad that the mage struck down wasn’t Annette.

* * *

A peculiar sense of deja vu crept over Felix as he walked down the street, back towards the center of Fhirdiad. Perhaps not here, and perhaps not recently, and perhaps not in quite the same manner or with the same objectives, he’d done all this before.

Except this time the book he carried he’d wrapped in paper, intending it as a gift, and he hadn’t found its intended recipient where he’d expected her, where she usually was this late in the evening.

He’d called on Annette at her home first, but her mother had smiled indulgently upon seeing him and informed him that she had yet to return from the School of Sorcery. “Like father, like daughter,” she’d said fondly before politely offering him tea and inviting him in to wait, which he declined, preferring to search her out for himself.

Felix gritted his teeth the entire well-lit way. Fhirdiad was safer than it was during the war, but reports of incidents - of muggings and worse - still plagued a diminished city guard. He personally blamed poor leadership - their captain defected to the Dukedom early in the war until he renewed his fealty to the Kingdom when they reclaimed Fhirdiad - but he wasn’t so naive to expect everything to to revert to some mythical, nonexistent state of perfection only one short year after the war.

He still didn’t really like Annette being out so late, even if she could handle herself well enough to survive months of battles and skirmishes, even if she lived in the same neighborhood as many of the king’s knights. Perhaps because she lived through the war with him he couldn’t help but be on edge.

He passed beneath the archway at the Royal School’s entry without incident. A guard on duty lurking nearby barely afforded him a glance, and Felix didn’t know if it was because he’d become recognizable with often he showed his face on school grounds or because he somehow looked nonthreatening.

That possibility made him frown more than the former. He carried a sword like any self-respecting Kingdom nobleman, and he wasn’t so oblivious to be ignorant of the intimidating air he’d spent half his life cultivating to ensure others left him alone. Surely the year since the war hadn’t dulled _him_.

Felix shook that worry loose from his mind, reminding himself he had more than enough _frustrating_ work to keep him sharp and a consistent training regimen besides. 

The doors to his destination were unlocked, which meant that at least one faculty member lingered even after most of their students had left for the day. His footsteps echoed through the familiar stone corridor lit with flickering lamps set into the walls.

Light spilled out from Annette’s ajar office door, and as Felix approached her voice drifted out to him:

“...can’t be right. There has to be more to those contraptions than just magic! If only I could get out to Arianrhod…”

Felix couldn’t help a slight smile as he paused outside her door. Warmth filled his chest, and even his heart beat with expectation.

He hadn’t seen Annette in over a moon, and though she rambled to herself about her research - something he barely grasped no matter how many times she explained it to him - none of her letters compared to hearing her voice.

“Where’s that encyclopedia?” she spoke from within at the same instant Felix raised his fist to knock. Annette’s footsteps sounded from inside along with a mumbled curse and a crash.

Alarm rose in him. He shoved open the door, but rather than finding her buried under an avalanche of books like he’d half-expected she stood over a pile strewn over the floor with a hand covering her face.

“A-Annette?”

She jumped, head jerking up and her cheeks flushing when her eyes landed on him. “Felix!” she said as a wide smile stretched across her face and she tripped over the fallen books in her haste to reach him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again for another moon.” Her arms flung around his neck.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close as the tension always coiled in his body eased. Annette’s very presence was a balm for his soul and a relief from the agonizing mundanity and administrative headaches and uncertainty that came with his duties as Duke of Fraldarius.

“I was impatient,” he admitted.

“You can just say you missed me,” she said with a teasing lilt to her voice. She pulled back just enough to look up towards his face, as her smile faltered. “You did, didn’t you?”

He blinked at her, stung by her uncertainty. “Obviously,” he said. He braced his hand against the back of her head to tug her close enough to kiss her forehead. “You weren’t home when I called.”

“Obviously,” Annette echoed. She slipped out of his arms - too soon, though soon enough he would be able to hold her as long and as often as he wanted - and leaned over to collect her fallen books. “I’ve just been so busy with my research and data collection, and my students are in the middle of their exams, and I’m overdue reporting my findings to the committee, and I still have our _wedding_ to plan, and—” She cut off as Felix took a book from her hands and set it on her overburdened desk.

Really, this whole office with its _mountains_ of books and sprawling notebooks covered in scribbles - was that a stick figure of him with hearts doodled around it in one of the margins? - spread over every surface (including the narrow windowsill) and empty teacups piled in a corner was probably a microcosm for the knowledge teeming in Annette’s mind.

“What book were you looking for when you made this mess?” Felix wondered.

“Um, the most important one,” she said with a sigh. “I must’ve misplaced it, or forgotten it in the library since I was working there before it got dark.”

“Is this it?” He held out his package.

Annette’s eyes flicked from her messy desk to the paper-wrapped parcel in his hand. “Is that...what?” When he only waved it at her, she took it hesitantly.

The entire time she tore away the wrapping paper his pulse pounded, expectant and not a little nervous. He’d given her gifts before, but this one felt...riskier, more loaded, and _trickier_ with how long it took him to track down a copy, much less someone willing to sell theirs.

Her jaw dropped when she finally unearthed the title. “No!” she exclaimed.

“Uh, yes?” he said lamely.

“Felix, there are only a handful of known copies of this book in Fodlan,” Annette explained as if she hadn’t already given him this spiel in her letters before, “and one of them is here at the School of Sorcery and it is absolutely forbidden for anyone to take it off the premises, so how in the world did you find another one?”

Felix crossed his arms and shrugged. “I have my ways.”

“Did you threaten anyone?” she asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Not...with a sword,” he confessed.

Annette stared at him before pushing the book against his chest. “I can’t accept this, Felix.”

“What?” he said. In all the scenarios he imagined when considering how to give it to her, this was not the outcome of any. “Why not?”

“It’s too...valuable,” she said, biting at her lip. “It should go to a school of magic somewhere, not with me.”

“You can give it to one yourself,” Felix said. He pushed it back towards her. “It’s yours now. Use it for your research so you don’t have to rely so much on the Royal School’s copy and stay here after dark, or donate it. It doesn’t matter.” He knew his preference, but—

Annette’s eyes widened. “Oh, you sneaky scoundrel.”

He frowned. “What?”

She tucked the book under her arm and prodded him in the chest with her forefinger. “You have an ulterior motive giving me this, don’t you?”

“Um…” His heart raced and heat rushed to his face, but slowly he nodded. “Yes, fine, I do.”

“You just want to make sure I won’t have to stay in Fhirdiad just to work on my research once we’re married, don’t you?”

Felix opened his mouth to protest but only nodded again. A sigh escaped him and he asked, “Is there something wrong with that?”

“No…” Annette didn’t quite look at him, but she clutched the book tight against her chest, her lips pressed together but her cheek dimpling, showing she fought a smile. “I just—fine! I’ll take the book, but once I don’t need it as much I’m donating it to my school or the Officers’ Academy, all right?”

He didn’t resist his smile. “I told you it’s yours,” he said.

“Well, thank you!” she all but squealed. She oh so carefully set the book on her desk - or, rather, at the top of a hill of notebooks - before launching herself into his arms.

He caught her around the middle and buried his face in her hair just to breathe her in.

“You weren’t...actually worried that I’d spend more time in Fhirdiad than with you in Fraldarius once we’re married though,” Annette said, her breath wisping over his ear, “were you?”

Felix swallowed as the pit of dread in his abdomen eased ever so slightly. “Maybe a little,” he admitted.

“Oh, you...silly…” Her warm hand touched his cheek, and he lifted his face to look at her. “Once we’re married I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well, that is what being married implies,” he said, his brow wrinkling.

The slightest hint of sadness tainted her smile. “I’m so happy you agree,” she said.

He cupped her face, his thumb smoothing over her cheek. “Until then, I’ll walk you home tonight,” he offered.

Annette blinked then frowned. “I, um, I can’t go home yet,” she said, at last pulling away from him again to return to her desk. “I still have so much to do…” She rubbed her eyes and barely concealed a yawn with her fist.

It drew his attention to the dark circles under her eyes, to her frizzing hair and the lack of makeup on her face and the wrinkles in her blouse.

Felix frowned, worry filling him, and asked, “When was the last time you took a break, Annette?”

She spent a long moment shuffling through papers and flipping through a notebook inked with detailed diagrams, half-turned away from him. “Um...well, I made tea a few hours ago,” she said.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Have you eaten dinner?”

“I have eaten...lunch,” Annette said. “I brought something from home.”

“How long have you been here then?” Felix dared to wonder though he suspected he knew the answer.

She flashed him a sheepish smile, and he couldn’t miss how her cheeks flushed. “Since...sunrise, maybe?”

“Annette—”

“I’ve been having late nights for the last few weeks,” she cut him off with a scowl. “I told you, I have to if I’m going to keep up with teaching and my research and the plans for _our_ wedding!” Her notebook shut with a snap before she opened it again grumbling about needing to mark her page.

He stepped towards her. “I thought your mother was helping you with that,” he said.

“She is,” Annette said. She tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear before admitting, “She’s worried about me too and she doesn’t like me coming home after dark, but maybe soon I won’t have to stay so late, especially with this book you got me.” She faced him, smiling a little brighter. 

Perhaps Felix had been naive to think that the war ending would ease any burden Annette carried. Perhaps he’d been foolish to think so at all with the burden he’d shouldered since.

But he would not be a poor husband despite this shortsightedness, he insisted to himself. If anything he would be a better husband than he was a duke, because he came to terms with his feelings for Annette far quicker than he did with a responsibility he never wanted. 

And becoming a passable husband began with training as a decent fiance.

“I’ll help with whatever you need too,” Felix said.

“Oh, you don’t need to,” Annette said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I know you have your own things to worry about.”

His hand found her wrist, and he tugged her towards him. “Isn’t that one of our vows?” he asked. “What’s mine become yours and what’s yours become mine?”

Her eyes widened, her lips parted in surprise. Her hand fell against his chest, right over his heart and its somersaulting against his ribs. “W-we’re not married yet,” she reminded him.

“Not for lack of desire,” Felix retorted, though his face warmed at the admission. “Why don’t we consider this practice?”

“Practice for—Felix!” Annette yelped as he slipped his arms around her back and under her knees. Her arm whipped up as he picked her up, her feet jerking until she settled against him.

It cost him nothing, no effort, not even a sweat. A smirk tugged at his lips when she crossed her arms and glared up at him, the ferocity in her expression diminishing none of the red flaring from her neck up to her hairline.

“Are you feeling all right?” he said. “You look a little feverish, maybe—”

“I hate you,” she said.

“No entreaty for me to put you down?” Felix said, raising an eyebrow.

“You won’t even if I ask politely,” Annette said, “and I’d rather be dignified about this.”

“Dignified?” He couldn’t help snorting as he turned in her office towards the door. “Says the woman who barged into my room to tell me she was trying to bribe me.”

“That was years ago, you villain,” she retorted. But she sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. “Aren’t _you_ tired after traveling all day?” she said. “Surely you won’t carry me all the way home.”

“Try me,” Felix said. “Maybe I just want something worthwhile to use my strength for.”

“I’m sure you can find something worthwhile,” Annette said, rolling her eyes.

“Carrying you home so you can rest isn’t worthwhile?” he said, unable to help his frown. And how easy it would be despite his days of travel. In his arms, with her almost pliant despite her verbal defiance, she reminded him irresistibly of the talkative, studious classmate who held onto his shoulders after spraining her ankle on a pointless school assignment.

Light despite her presence, fragile despite her fortitude, and undeniably precious. And he liked her here, tucked against him, her face close to his and where he could keep her safe. 

“Oh please don’t,” she said. “What would my mother think, Felix? Hasn’t she suffered enough?”

“Apparently not if she still lives with your father,” he let slip out. 

It was probably not worth the ire in Annette’s glare, so he tilted his forehead into hers and mumbled, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” she said, but she looped her arms around his neck, as if resigned to this fate and willing to grow comfortable with it. She buried her face against his neck, her breath warm and enticing on his skin, and said, “You’re still such a villain.”

“I know,” he said as he maneuvered them through the doorway and nudged her door closed.

“Y-you make me so happy,” Annette added, her voice tremulous.

Felix’s step faltered, and his grip on her tightened. Any words he could’ve said, any of his teasing or needling, dried up. He pressed his forehead to the top of her head and murmured, “Then I must be doing something right.”

* * *

“Remind me why we got married in Fhirdiad,” Felix said. He tilted his face up to stare at the sky and its perfect shade of springtime blue as the trees thinned and the road ahead of them widened.

Annette rode alongside him, bobbing almost comically with her horse’s lumbering motion. “A lot of our friends live in Fhirdiad,” she said, “and it’s more central than Fraldarius, and His Majesty offered to host and it would’ve been rude to refuse, and my mother doesn’t like traveling, and—”

“All right, fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. He wasn’t sure they were very good reasons - he would’ve been more than happy _eloping_ and simply asking Mercedes to officiate a small, private ceremony for them to have done with it, but everyone from his uncle to Ingrid insisted it would be a terrible idea - but he accepted them because Annette thought them worthwhile.

“Why so impatient?” she wondered, and how quickly she came to that very correct conclusion stunned him.

Then again, he did a poor job concealing his emotions around her of late, and she knew him well enough it would be futile to try.

“You’re not...homesick, are you?” Annette added.

Felix frowned at the road before staring ahead to where the spires of the castle rose from over the crest of a low hill. Homesick, for Fraldarius? As if he hadn’t been eager to leave his so-called home again every time he returned to it in the last half of his life for one reason or another, and the latest reason now came home with him.

Strange. It had been home when he was a child. Maybe it could become a home again.

Maybe he and Annette could make it one.

“No,” he said when he realized he’d let the silence drag on too long. “I wasn’t homesick. I just…” He glanced over his shoulder to the trail their retinue made, a smattering of armed soldiers with a handful of servants. He’d done his due diligence since the war and made sure his territory was one of the safest in Fodlan, but he wasn’t so foolish to travel anywhere without a sharpened sword and a guard.

Not when their wedding gifts made an excellent case for why they should have married in Fraldarius.

“We haven’t been properly alone,” he admitted. His ears warmed, and he dared to shoot a glance at Annette.

Her eyes were wide on his face, and a hint of pink colored her cheeks before a laugh burst from her. “I thought we were plenty alone when we spent last night at that inn,” she said, and the faint smirk she flashed him belied her blush. “At least, alone enough to—”

“I think I’ve suffered this wait long enough,” Felix said. He dug his heels into his horse’s sides and loosened his grip on the reins.

His horse bolted, and all at once he remembered why he didn’t particularly enjoy riding. His teeth practically rattled in his skull as he bounced in the saddle and the ground lurched beneath him.

“Felix!” Annette shouted after him, and hooves thundered behind him as she gave chase.

They crossed through the castle gates, open and awaiting their arrival, in quick succession.

Felix jerked on the reins to slow his horse, his breath short and his heart racing as he turned his head to find Annette doing the same. Her hair was wind-swept, her eyes shining, and his chest warmed as she smiled.

“If you wanted me to sing for you,” she said, “you didn’t have to race me for it.”

“I wasn’t racing you,” he scoffed. He swung one leg over the saddle and slid to the ground on unsteady legs as a groom raced towards them.

He handed his reins off with a mumbled thanks before approaching Annette, still seated in her saddle with both legs dangling over one side. He raised an eyebrow at her and rested his hand on her knee. “Well?”

She frowned. “Surely you’re going to offer your wife a hand down from her horse?” she said.

Felix rolled his eyes but said, “Of course.” He extended his hand, but as Annette made to grasp it he reached around to grab her waist and tug her down.

It didn’t go as...smoothly as he’d planned.

Annette gasped and caught herself with his shoulders as he stumbled back a step. She stared up at him with wide eyes as he set her down with the care he should’ve used dragging her from the saddle, and his hands hovered over her waist.

Felix winced, his face hot while embarrassment writhed in his abdomen. It seemed as if marrying Annette would not stop him from making a fool of himself in front of her.

“Well, that was a little clumsier than I expected,” Annette noted, “but I think we can recapture the romance.”

He opened his mouth to reply, only for his words to die in his throat as she looped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him.

“Um...what are you thinking?” he wondered, though he wrapped his arms around her waist almost automatically. Distantly he was aware of the rest of their retinue arriving and of their staff approaching to assist them with unloading the luggage...and of their polite and pointed glances in different directions.

“Surely you’re going to carry me over the threshold of our home,” Annette said, her eyebrow quirking. When he only gaped at her, she frowned. “I know you don’t think much of it, but it’s _traditional_ , Felix!”

“Oh, well, I can,” Felix said, and in one smooth easy motion - he’d become as practiced in this as he was in swinging a blade - he swept her up into his arms.

He heard the instant her breath hitched, as her feet lifted from the ground and he cradled her close. A smile prodded at his lips, and her hand cupped the back of his neck.

“Any more demands?” he asked. He turned them around and walked the familiar path up the stairs towards the castle’s main entrance.

“Just one more,” Annette said as he carried her over the threshold of his old home and their new home. Her arms around his neck tightened, and she beamed at him as radiant as the sun and twice as warm and beloved of his life.

Felix didn’t need her to tell him to lean down and seal his lips over hers.

* * *

There were many reasons that Felix hated parties, and banquets, and balls, and he hated most of all the rare ones that he had to host.

Or, well, that Annette hosted.

It was always an evening of pretending to enjoy the company of more than a handful of people, of thanking guests for their contrived flattery of the food and decor and accommodations, of attempting to either steer conversations into topics he disliked but needed to address or of escaping them entirely with some stitched together excuse.

The worst part by far was that as a host he was forced to spend most of the event away from his own partner while she performed the same dance with other guests but with a deftness and grace he could never manage.

That didn’t stop him from stealing a few moments with Annette here and there.

Or her from approaching him.

She caught him in a rare moment alone, after he chased off an Alliance lord whose name he’d forgotten. His tense shoulders relaxed at the sight of her, of the smile she flashed him brighter than anything she offered their guests (he liked to think).

He closed the gap between them, his hands resting on her waist as hers touched his arms. “Your lipstick is smudged,” he noted.

“I know,” she said with a frown. “I’ve been meaning to slip away to fix it, but I haven’t had the chance.”

“You still look perfect,” he said. He cupped her face, the tip of his thumb catching the corner of her lip.

“Felix,” Annette whined as she turned her face away from him. Her cheeks flushed, apparent even in the low lighting in the great hall. But she braced a hand against his chest and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.

Heat bloomed in his chest. He longed to tug her closer and kiss her properly, to forget the stupid banquet and their guests.

It didn’t help that her hands lingered on him, and she smoothed the fabric of his coat more than necessary. Her smile turned a little faint, and she said, “I...um, I’d just escaped Lorenz. He wanted to talk about my...poetry.”

“Since when do you write poetry?” Felix asked, blinking down at her. “I thought you wrote songs for children.”

Her nose wrinkled in a faint expression of displeasure. “No, I don’t write _poetry_ ,” Annette said before a sigh escaped her. “And I did want to talk to him and to Professor Hanneman about expanding my research, but he kept asking about my stupid songs.”

“Do you want me to do something about it?” he wondered. He wasn’t sure what just yet - he would probably decide between banishing Gloucester from his castle and challenging him to a spar by the time he found him.

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I just needed to...clear my head a little before talking to anyone else that was bound to be frustrating.” The corner of her lips quirked before she giggled. “Is this what’s it like being you at a party?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Getting tired of listening to other people talk,” Annette explained. She lowered her face, frowning. “I like talking to people, and I’m used to steering conversations, but it’s so tiring when everyone wants to talk about themselves or—or something silly like the soup course!”

“Well,” Felix said with a hum, “have you begun to fantasize about humiliating anyone on the training grounds just to prove a point?”

She lifted her face. “No?” 

“Then you’re not quite like me yet,” he said. “And what a relief. I think one of me is more than enough.”

“Well, they do say that married couples grow more like each other,” Annette said, “so maybe you’ll become a little more like me so we can meet in the middle!”

He considered that, frowning slightly, before resting his forehead against hers and admitting, “I think we all could stand to be a little more like you, Annette. Maybe then I’d find our company more tolerable.”

Her hand squeezed his arm in warning though her lips quirked into a smile. He was about to indulge that part of him that never tired of kissing her when someone nearby cleared their throat.

A sigh escaped Felix. “If you’re here to thank us for the party before excusing yourself, boar,” he said, “you needn’t bother.”

“Actually,” said Dimitri with an insufferable smile upon his face, “I was going to thank Annette for the party.”

Annette stepped out of the fold of Felix’s arms, her face flushed to her hairline, but managed a composed smile. “I’m happy you could make it, Your Majesty!” she said. “I know how busy you are and how much you don’t really...care for them either.” She extended her hand to Dimitri, who dutifully took it and shook it.

He didn’t kiss her knuckles, Felix noted with some satisfaction. Apparently he’d learned his lesson from last time.

“Yes, well, next time I shall bring Gustave along with me,” Dimitri promised.

“If there is a next time,” he mumbled. Banquets in Fraldarius had been rare in his childhood and all but nonexistent in his youth. But he _never_ wanted to return to those days - as if he could - so these little infrequent events Annette hosted - as was her right as a duchess - were but a small sacrifice.

“Oh, no, I know Father is a little old for travel these days,” Annette said. “I do wish he would retire, at least for Mother’s sake.”

Felix pressed his lips together and ignored the annoyed quips that always brewed within him at any mention of his father-in-law.

“Actually, perhaps you have some insight on how we might convince him,” Dimitri said. He offered Annette his arm. “Claude also had something he wished to speak of with you.”

“Oh?” She blinked almost owlishly before glancing at Felix with a sheepish smile. “I guess it’s about time I returned to our guests, isn’t it?” But she still grabbed his collar to tug him down.

It was an easy kiss, a quick press of lips, but heat still rushed to his face. He resisted the urge to pull her closer and seek more and settled with resting his hand on her back.

He watched her leave with her arm through Dimitri’s, not a little irritated, before facing the tumult of guests.

Damn it all, he’d rather fight a hundred more battles with nothing but a broken sword than deal with this mess without Annette beside him.

At least Ingrid made for decent company and didn’t make (many) demands from him, and though Mercedes asked him far too many probing questions (didn’t Annette answer all these when she wrote to her?) he didn’t mind her. The professor - Archbishop - was polite but more distant than she was as his teacher, but he even smiled a little when she asked if he would like to spar before she returned to Garreg Mach.

Felix crossed his arms. “You won’t be disappointed,” he promised.

“I suppose that remains to be seen,” she said, fingernails tapping against her wineglass.

“I may be running all over Fodlan on the boar’s behalf,” he explained, “but that hardly means I’ve neglected my—” His gaze caught on something just over her shoulder.

Claude von Riegan, dressed in all his royal Almyran finery, smirked as he kissed Annette’s hand.

It had been a very long evening, of playing the pleasant host, of performing the little social minutiae he’d always hated and that he’d come to hate even more as a duke. And Felix found he was very tired simply of keeping his distance from his own wife.

Something would change after tonight, he decided, at least if he ever agreed to host an event in his castle again, but for now he would settle with the best and most basic.

Felix didn’t bother making his excuses, didn’t bother shrugging away the guests who approached him with questions or concerns. His blood pulsed too loudly to listen for them, just like it used to before battles when he couldn’t quite settle his nerves.

“...would love to share some ideas!” Annette exclaimed as he approached. “Why don’t we talk more about this tomorrow?”

“That sounds delightful,” said Riegan. “I can’t wait. Oh, good evening, Felix.” He rested a hand on his chest and offered a shallow bow. “Might I steal your wife for a few hours tomorrow? I wanted to ask her expertise about founding a magic academy in Almyra.” He straightened, a spark in his eyes. “No reason Fodlan should have a monopoly on Faith, right?”

Felix bit back his irritation in favor of a stiff nod. “Tomorrow if that’s all right with Annette,” he said, “but _not_ tonight.”

Riegan’s smile faltered. “That is what I...”

Felix grabbed Annette’s hand and tugged her away before Riegan could finish his sentence.

His heartbeat spurred him on as he dragged her out of the great hall and a ways down the corridor. Annette didn’t resist, but did wonder, “Felix, is something wrong?”

“Yes,” he said, and he spun around, took her face in both hands, and kissed her.

He felt more than heard her gasp against his lips, felt the warmth of her stuttering breath on his cheek before she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed into him. Her lips parted beneath his as his heart raced, tripping over itself in its haste to burst from his chest and make a new home with Annette, to whom it belonged.

He slipped an arm around her waist to draw her closer, and her fingers threaded through his ponytail. She was warm where the great hall had been stuffy, and she kissed him with an eagerness, a verve that suggested she...wanted him.

Just as well.

Felix pulled away first, if only to draw air into his aching lungs. Annette’s pink face and wide eyes and parted lips greeted him, and her small hand cupped his jaw. 

She said breathlessly, “What was—I mean, I’ve been wanting to do that all night, but why now?”

“I’m tired,” he told her. “Let’s go to bed.”

“But the party—”

“It won’t be the first party I’ve escaped before the end,” Felix said, “and I doubt it’ll be the last.” And with that he leaned down just enough to wrap his arms around Annette’s legs.

She squealed as he picked her up and all but threw her over his shoulder. “Ah, Felix!” she complained while shifting against his back. He winced when her elbow collided with his spine, but then she stopped wiggling.

“Any arguments?” he wondered, hesitating.

“Oh, goddess no,” she said. “Just be a good villain and take me to bed before all the blood rushes to my head.”

“How can a villain be good?” Felix asked, though a smile spread across his face.

“Ugh,” Annette groaned. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“I know,” he said, squeezing her middle as he carried her down the corridor towards the stairs, eager to retreat to the privacy of their quarters. “I’m so lucky I love you too.”

Unlike a party they escaped together a few short years ago, he very much doubted they would bother returning to this one.

**Author's Note:**

> i call these a series of vignettes but they're really seven tenuously connected short one-shots in a trench coat (which i guess is what vignette fics are!). originally i was only going to write five but [Rose](https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes?s=20) is an enabler
> 
> I hope you liked it! Would love to hear what you thought ~~i missed writing long one-shots, my bread and butter ;_;~~


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